All Play & No Work... Ch. 02

I was becoming frustrated and tired. It was stuffy in the little office with the door closed, and I was starting to get a headache from the long drinking session. I was also desperately aroused and all I could think about was what it would be like to kiss her. She and I had spent an hour dancing around each other in ever decreasing circles and I was dizzy from it. I felt it was time to move on to the "all fall down" part of the game, and I wanted Fabienne to fall down with me without further ado. I was so drunk that I was entirely beyond caring about consequences, or morals, or safe sex, or any of that killjoy rubbish.

I stood up as best I could and grabbed the door handle, throwing the flimsy door open. The chill, musty air from the dark warehouse billowed around me and into the room and I felt slightly refreshed. Fabienne just watched me, glass in hand, her eyelids heavy. In fact, I observed with some alarm, she looked very sleepy indeed. That would not do at all. I took matters into my own hands then, took control of the situation, and made the first move.

The move I made took me around the big wooden desk and sat me on her side of it, directly before her as she sat slumped in her chair. I opened my legs and planted a black high heeled boot on each armrest. In a sort of daze, my fingers moving through invisible treacle, I started to unbutton my shirt slowly. It was black silk, short sleeved and tailored at the waist; and when I undid the last button it fell open in a very pleasing way, revealing my full breasts and my best black lace bra. Strange how one feels one ought to dress up for the dead. Fabienne, the epitome of cool nonchalance, smiled and stood up on cue, shaking her head, and ran her index finger along the inside seam of my trouser leg. She stopped just before it reached the crotch.

"Well now." She breathed a thick cloud of whiskey into my face. "Someone's got themselves into a right state haven't they?" And with that she deftly plucked control of the situation from my hands and tucked it back into her trouser pocket where it belonged. I blushed, but at the same time I felt shameless. I was not about to apologise for what I wanted, not this time. It was too important. I met her eyes defiantly.

"Is this what you want?" She slid her hands inside my unbuttoned shirt and took hold of my waist, idly massaging my flesh as we regarded each other intently. I felt such strength in those hands. "Is it? Suzanne?" Fabienne whispered my name in my ear, burying her face in my neck, and I felt a hot trickle of desire run out of me and soak my knickers. I caught my breath as her lips traversed my collarbone and caressed my throat, my hands gripping her short brown hair, keeping her close to me. "Oh god..." I moved forwards so that I was perched on the very edge of the desk and she responded by pressing her thigh firmly between my spread legs. My swollen clitoris pulsed wantonly against the hard muscle. She pulled back and grinned at me, her lips mere inches from mine, but I was beyond grinning. My eyes were glazed and my mind was completely focused on just one thing.

"Kiss me," I said.

We kissed and I thought my heart would stop. Our lips never parting, Fabienne hurriedly undid my belt and tore open my trouser buttons. I stood up and between us we wriggled and wrenched them down over my hips. The black cotton fell to my ankles and then – oh sweet Jesus! Her fingers were inside me. I felt her urgency, her desire as strong as my own. She pulled my panties down with her free hand and pushed me back onto the desk so I was lying with my knees up by my shoulders, and she screwed me right there in the basement at work with my boots on and my knickers round my ankles. And I moaned like a whore because I was drunk and coming and I loved her truly, madly and deeply; and because there was no one to hear me but her.

"Suzanne!" she murmured as my cunt contracted around her hand and I found the oblivion that I had known all along I would find at the ends of her fingers. "Oh god, Suzanne. Suzanne. Suzanne..."

"SUZANNE!" I woke up violently in the all-consuming panic that one only feels when one is expectedly shouted at whilst deep in a drunken slumber. Or when one has fallen asleep at work and been discovered. In this particular instance the two had occurred as one. It was Maureen the cleaning lady and I was slumped over a table in the photography studio with my face on the light box. "You're dribbling, love," she said kindly. She had a vacuum cleaner in hand. "I didn't want to scare you!" she said, nodding at it, as if the sudden screech of it starting up would have been any less pleasant to awaken to than the screech of her voice in my ear.

I was completely disorientated and I felt horrendous after the wine – I looked at my watch – over two hours ago. It was long past knocking off time and I had no memory of going into the studio at all. I sat for a few minutes as the hoover droned around me, my head pounding, trying to recall. I could just remember getting into the lift; after that, blank. And my wonderful, powerful, amorous relationship with Fabienne the Dispatch Supervisor? Essentially blank also. I went into the toilets and cried alcoholic tears of frustration at the awful chicanery of dreams, and then I drove home very badly and went to bed where I was wilfully nostalgic about my lost encounter with the woman I loved. I masturbated about someone for the first time in years.

The next day I woke a clear two hours before the alarm feeling fine but oddly empty. The sun was creeping into the sky in the east, clawing at dawn's pale skin with spindly orange fingers. I ducked through the shower, pulled on my suit, grabbed my bag and a pre-packaged breakfast bar and set off to walk to work. I hadn't eaten properly since lunch the previous day but I wasn't hungry in the slightest. I was dreadfully in love with a woman at work who I'd spent all of an hour-and-a-half with at a wake and then gone off and had major sex with several times without her knowledge. I needed to think.

It took me nearly two hours, but I scarcely noticed the distance. The sun was shining and the air was crisp, and most of the city was still in bed. It was quite beautiful. I resolved to get up at sparrows' fart more often. And as I walked through the gates and up the steps still deep in thought, who should come strolling out of the cycle racks but...Fabienne herself. To say I was torn would be an understatement – I wanted to sink quietly into the ground whilst simultaneously running up and jumping on her. I blushed crimson as some kind of a compromise. She approached as I stood rooted to the spot, grinning hugely. I silently chided myself. Of course she couldn't know what I was thinking! "Well, morning...Suzanne right?" she asked affably, returning my grin. I willed my mouth to work normally and thankfully it did. "Hey Fabienne!" I said. "You're in early."

"Usual time for us lot!" she replied cheerfully, her eyes sparkling. I seemed to amuse her. We walked into the building together in awkward companionship, like one does when one just made a friend. "Why you so early?" Because I've been obsessing about you all night. "I, uh... Just woke up too early, thought I'd walk in."

"Where d'you live?"

"East Park." She stopped dead in the middle of the lobby and looked at me in disbelief. "Fuck me!" she said. Daniel The Receptionist blinked. Oh god yes please... Stop it! "You?"

"What, Da Vinci's? Whoa, bit posh for me mate!" Fabienne winked at me. I smiled at her and suddenly she was gone and we were having dinner at 8.

The day dragged and dragged, as one might imagine – as it does when one has a first date in the offing and no idea how on earth it will pan out. When one is full to bursting with need and expectation and fear and anxiety and desire with a great big red welt of love across one's heart already. I burned for her all day long. I drove myself crazy. It was all I could do to stop myself slipping out of the studio and into the lift to the basement to try to catch a glimpse of her unobserved. When five-thirty finally rolled around I dropped everything in a most uncharacteristic manner and raced down to the bus stop, wishing for all the world that I'd come in the car. It would take me at least an hour-an-a-half to get home, I calculated, public transport notwithstanding, so I'd have about forty minutes to get ready before getting a bus to High Green. The adrenaline high was exhausting.

In the bedroom I had an attack of the Bridget Joneses trying to choose underwear, which ate up twenty of the forty minutes I had, and then I was out the door and back to the bus stop like a lovestruck teenager. Fortunately I didn't have to waste time doing my hair – it was short and bleached and stayed put in a force ten gale thanks to the wonders of modern gel technology. I paced the bus shelter like a mad woman in my best red evening dress, black jacket and boots, cursing the council as bus after bus roared past, until eventually the Number 8 shuddered to a halt and I leapt on board. I had just over nine minutes for a twenty-minute ride.

As I trotted up to the restaurant in complete panic and disarray, ten minutes late, Fabienne was just going inside. I caught up with her in the doorway and the relief was evident on both sides. "Ah," she said, and opened the door for me. "I was starting to think you were gonna stand me up!"

"I'm really sorry!" I babbled. "I came on the bus." She raised an eyebrow at my inadvertent double-entendre and I melted into her eyes. "Surely not," was her laconic reply. The maitre d' seated us by the window. Fabienne and I looked at our menus for a while in silence. It was excruciating and exhilarating all at once. He came for our drinks order and after half a double gin and tonic I started to feel a little more in command of the situation.

"So what you gonna have?" I chirped. Fabienne eyed me over the top of her menu. "Um, I don't speak Italian," she muttered sheepishly. Oh god. I felt momentarily embarrassed as I realised she was way out of her comfort zone being in this place; until I realised that that fact put me in charge of the evening rather nicely. I put my menu down and she did the same. "Well..." We put our heads together over the small table and I could smell her hair. I wanted to nuzzle my head against hers and lose myself in her scent. "The fish is excellent. Or the pizza..."

"Order for me?" Fabienne gazed imploringly at me and I had no choice but to put my hand over hers where it rested on the checked cloth and smile back at her. I felt the ring before I saw it.

Fabienne's partner worked out of town, it transpired, and was rarely at home. They had been together for seven years and it seemed that Fabienne had the proverbial itch. She filled me in over coffee and I had no idea what to feel about it. We had been flirting all evening. We'd been flirting since we met, but this roadblock of a revelation stopped me dead in my tracks. Oh, but she could flirt! Fabienne flirted like a pro whilst still managing to maintain an air of child-like innocence and naivete. She knew exactly which strings she was pulling, what game she was playing, at all times. And she was playing to win. I never did understand how she did it. My own method of flirting seemed so ham-fisted and obvious in comparison – an elephant playing hide-and-seek with a hummingbird. But now...the choice was mine as the bill came. I paid it and we stood up as the waiter brought our jackets and wished us a pleasant evening. How hard honesty is to bear.

The street outside was damp and cold and dead and I shivered with the temperature change. We'd chatted and laughed and stared our way through a nice Chianti and a couple of large ports each and chill air was heavy with possibilities. Fabienne was with me, close and warm, her arm around my waist. Did I care she was technically spoken for? I debated this while we waited for the taxi, and all the way back to her bedroom. I pondered a little more as I stripped her naked and marvelled at her firm, muscular body; I considered it further whilst I cupped her succulent breasts in my hands and brought my mouth to each of her solid nipples in turn...and then I forgot about everything as I worked my fingers up her soaking cunt and licked her 'til she gave me her submission.

We were like animals that night, taking our frustrations out on each others' bodies. Fabienne strapped on her cock and more or less dragged me by the hair to the dining room, where she swept everything off the table and bent me over. I spread for her and she penetrated me roughly, pressing each thrust home as deep as she could. I ached for her, I begged for her to make me come and she fucked me 'til I collapsed in tears. Back in the bedroom, I tied her to the bedframe with my stockings and made love to every inch of her sweating body until she writhed against her restraints, splintering one of the wooden struts on the headboard as she broke free to press my face against her clit in climax. She was magnificent. We both slept through the next day and missed work entirely.

So began my life with Fabienne. It lasted all of nine weeks. We were together almost every night, ravaging each other, and sometimes in the day as well. She would come up to my studio when I texted her and I would lock the door and put on the red light. It would start with some photographs and end with her on top of me on the hard floor, fully clothed, one hand inside my knickers and the other clamped over my mouth. I could feel her in every orifice all the time and the memories would make me as wet as if she were there touching me.

My work at that time was inspired – by Fabienne. I got a rise and my images were used for a major billboard campaign. The creativity poured out of me into every project I touched: and it was all because of wonderful, amazing her. I didn't understand it and I didn't try to. She, on the other hand, had several warnings and went before her senior manager twice for being absent from her post without good reason. That was half my fault: we would lose ourselves in the stacks of shipping crates and I would screw her with a condom-covered aerosol can, slowly, my eyes fixed on hers, filling her with my makeshift cock until she lost control.

One evening in a bar she asked me, "Why do you want me?" I thought for a moment, then I took the serviette from the table and a pen from my inside pocket and I wrote. I handed the paper to her as I went off to the toilet. It read: 'My fiery muse, you are then one who drives me. I only burn from your spark. PS I love you.' When I sat back down her eyes were unreadable. "Now you have to eat that," I told her, "because I don't want anyone to know you're the reason I've become a success!" Fabienne just tucked the napkin into her pocket and didn't say a thing about it.

If she ever loved me I never knew it, and it was over as suddenly as it had begun – she just wasn't there one day. I drove round to her house after work and there was no answer. I found out through a friend in HR that she'd quit with no notice "for personal reasons" and that she was leaving the area in a hurry – and other than her bank details for final salary payment they had nothing on her. She didn't answer my texts, the To Let sign went up on her house after a few days...she vanished from my life just as strikingly as she had entered it. And the text message two weeks later that simply said "I'm so sorry" did nothing to ease my pain.

After she'd left I would do all kinds of things to try to keep her with me. I bought her favourite teabags, and when I drank that tea I would imagine that I was somehow drinking her. When I passed a department store in town, I would wander into the fragrance concessions and spray her scent onto my neck so I could smell her near me. It was a powerful reminiscent. I kept the last work shirt she had worn, kept it from the wash, kept it with me in bed at night and buried my face in it until it was damp with lonely tears. I went into therapy and ended up talking about her more than anything else, although that was not why I had gone there. And I grinned each time I spoke her name, for years. My love for Fabienne was impregnable and insurmountable and I thought I would die from it.

She was my second heart, nestled deep alongside my own; an insistent and untiring pulse within me. She drove me and filled me, she was a vital part of me. I felt her inside me always, in everything I did, in every thought and feeling; a sweet voice in my head and a constant pounding throughout my entire body. Fabienne was at the centre of my inner world from day one. She never left me; not really.

And she was outside me too: all around me every hour of every day, simultaneously by my side and right behind me, pushing me forwards and holding my hand. I felt her strong arms around me, her hand on my shoulder... her breasts against my back, her soft lips in my hair. In my bed at night she would hold me tight and close and we would lie together like two spoons while I tried to fall asleep. Still and silent...until the heat and the wetness between my legs became too much to bear and I was aching and throbbing for her touch. Her fingers would find my nipples then, brushing against the hardness she had provoked there, and the passion would surge from me to her and take us both down like a great wave. Fabienne would roll me over and move on top of me, spreading my legs with her own, and look down gently into my eyes. A thousand words could never contain what was said between us in those looks.

She made love to me every night – slowly or urgently, tenderly or roughly, in any way I wanted, tailoring her responses to the needs she felt erupting within my body. She could bring me to orgasm with a kiss. When I was sated I would fall into a heavy slumber and she would enter my dreams and enter me again, and again. I came in my sleep many times at her hand, or on her tongue, waking wet and tingling and smiling. My head and my fingers more than made up for what my body was missing when she wasn't there any more.

It's fair to say I idolised her. I added finer points to her where there were none, and I cushioned myself from her sharp edges. Fabienne was a rough diamond to be sure, but she always shone for me, and brighter than any other I have ever found. No one will ever take her place in my heart, of this I am certain. You see, in every person's life there will be one love which affects, which cruelly afflicts, more than all the others – it may be the first love, it may be the love you die clinging onto at the age of a hundred. It will leave a tiny wound so deep it will not heal. Other loves will scar, but this one – The One – simply bleeds forever.